Shonyu now spoke about that event. "I hardly know how to apologize for our defeat, cause of my son-in-law's foolishness."
"You're too concerned about that," Hideyoshi said, laughing. "That's not like the Ikeda Shonyu I know."
Should I blame Shonyu or just let it alone? Hideyoshi wondered when he awoke the following morning. Regardless of anything else, however, the advantage of having Inuyama Castle in his hands before the coming great battle was extraordinary. Hideyoshi praised Shonyu for his meritorious deed over and over again, and not just to console him.
On the twenty-fifth Hideyoshi rested and assembled his army, which numbered more than eighty thousand men.
Leaving Gifu the next morning, he arrived at Unuma at noon and immediately had a bridge of boats constructed across the Kiso River. The army then camped for the night. On the morning of the twenty-seventh it broke camp and headed toward Inuyama. Hideyoshi entered Inuyama Castle exactly at noon.
"Bring me a horse with strong legs," he ordered, and immediately after finishing his lunch, he galloped from the castle gate, accompanied by only a few mounted men in light armor.
"Where will you be going, my lord?" a general asked, chasing after him at full gallop.
"Just a few of you should come along," Hideyoshi replied. "If there are too many of us, we'll be spotted by the enemy."
Hurrying through the village of Haguro, where Nagayoshi had reportedly been killed, they climbed Mount Ninomiya. From there Hideyoshi could look down into the enemy's main camp at Mount Komaki.
The combined forces of Nobuo and Ieyasu were said to number about sixty-one thousand men. Hideyoshi narrowed his eyes and looked far into the distance. The sun at midday was glaringly bright. Silently put his hand over his eyes, he quietly gazed out over Mount Komaki, which was covered with the enemy forces.
On that day Ieyasu was still in Kiyosu. He had gone to Mount Komaki, given his instructions for the battle lineup, and quickly returned. It was as though a go master were moving a single stone on the board with extreme care.
On the evening of the twenty-sixth, Ieyasu received a confirmed report that Hideyoshi was in Gifu. Ieyasu, Sakakibara, Honda, and other retainers were seated in a room. They were just being told that the construction of the fortifications at Mount Komaki had been completed.
"So Hideyoshi's come?" Ieyasu muttered. As he and the other men looked around ateach other, he smiled, the skin under his eyes wrinkling like a turtle's. It was happening just as he had foreseen.
Hideyoshi had always been quick to start, and the fact that he was not displaying his usual speed this time caused Ieyasu substantial concern. Would he make his stand in Ise or would he come east to the Nobi Plain? As Hideyoshi was still at Gifu he could go in either direction. Ieyasu waited for the next report, which when it came told him that Hideyoshi had built a bridge across the Kiso River and was at Inuyama Castle.
Ieyasu received this information at dusk on the twenty-seventh day of the month, and the look on his face announced that the time had come. Preparations for the battle were completed during the night. On the twenty-eighth, Ieyasu's army advanced toward Mount Komaki to the thunder of drums and the fluttering of banners.
Nobuo had returned to Nagashima, but upon receiving a report of the situation, he immediately hurried to Mount Komaki where he joined forces with Ieyasu.
"I've heard that Hideyoshi's forces here alone number more than eighty thousand men and his entire forces combined are well beyond a hundred and fifty thousand,' Nobuo said, as if he had never thought that he was the cause of this great battle. His trembling eyes revealed what could be not concealed within his breast.
* * *
Shonyu grimaced in the smoke of the evening kitchen fires as he rode out through the castle gate.
The Ikeda warriors were apprehensive of his frame of mind just from glancing at his face. They all knew that Shonyu's bad mood was due to Nagayoshi's defeat. Owing to his misjudgment, he had burdened his allies with a severe blow at the very outset of the war even before Hideyoshi, the commander-in-chief, had arrived on the battlefield.
Ikeda Shonyu had always been confident that no one had ever pointed a finger of scorn at him, and for a man who had lived a warrior's life for forty-eight years, this disgrace must have been unexpected, at the very least.
"Yukisuke, come over here. Terumasa, you come, too. The senior retainers should come up close, too."
Sitting cross-legged in the hall of the main citadel, he had called together his sons Yukisuke and Terumasa and his senior retainers.
"I want to hear your unreserved opinions. First, take a look at this," he said, producing a map from his kimono.
As the men passed the map around, they realized what Shonyu was suggesting.
On the map a line had been drawn in red ink from Inuyama through the mountain: and over the rivers to Okazaki in Mikawa. After looking at the map, the men silently waited to see what Shonyu would say next.
"If we put Komaki and Kiyosu aside and advance our men along one road to the Tokugawa main castle at Okazaki, there's no doubt that even Ieyasu will be thrown into confusion. The only thing we need to be concerned about is how to keep our army from being seen by the enemy at Mount Komaki."
No one was quick to speak. It was an unusual plan. If a single mistake was made, it might result in a disaster that could be fatal to all of their allies.
"I'm thinking of offering this plan to Lord Hideyoshi. If it works, both Ieyasu and Nobuo will be able to do nothing as we take them captive."
Shonyu wanted to perform some meritorious deed to make up for his son-in-law's defeat. He wanted to stare back in triumph at the people who were gossiping maliciously about him. Although they understood that those were his intentions, no one was ready to criticize what he had in mind. No one was ready to say, "No, clever plans rarely invite merit. This is dangerous."
At the end of the conference the plan had won unanimous support. All the commanders begged to be put in the vanguard that would go deep into enemy territory and destroy Ieyasu in the very bosom of his own province.
A similar plan had been tried at Shizugatake by Shibata Katsuie's nephew, Genba. Nevertheless, Shonyu was ready to advocate the plan to Hideyoshi and said, "We'll go to the main camp at Gakuden tomorrow."
He spent the night sleeping on the idea. At dawn, however, a messenger came from Gakuden and told him, "As he makes the inspection rounds today, Lord Hideyoshi is likely to stop at Inuyama Castle around noon."
As Hideyoshi felt the mild breeze of the beginning of the Fourth Month wafting over him, he rode out of Gakuden and, after carefully observing Ieyasu's camp at Mount Komaki and the enemy fortifications in the area, took the road to Inuyama accompanied ten pages and close attendants.
Whenever Hideyoshi met with Shonyu, he treated him like an old friend. When they were young samurai in Kiyosu, Shonyu, Hideyoshi, and Inuchiyo had often gone out drinking together.
'By the way, how's Nagayoshi?" he asked.
It had been reported that Nagayoshi had been killed, but he had only been badly injured.
'He made a mess of things with his hotheadedness, but his recovery has been extrordinarily quick. All he can talk about is getting to the front as quickly as possible and clearing his name."
Hideyoshi turned to one of his retainers and asked, "Ichimatsu, of all the enemy fortifications we saw at Mount Komaki today, which looked to be the strongest?"
That was the sort of question he liked to ask, calling the men around him and listening happily to the frank words of the young warriors.